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Norton Internet Security 2010 review

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Verdict

More features than ever to keep you safe online, in a pleasingly nimble package

Review Date: 22 Sep 2009

Reviewed By: Darien Graham-Smith

Price when reviewed: £43 (£49 inc VAT)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
5 stars out of 6

Value for Money
4 stars out of 6

Ease of Use
6 stars out of 6

PCPRO Recommended

Last year, Symantec set out to make Norton Internet Security one of the most lightweight suites on the market – and it did a commendable job. This year, the focus is back on features.

The big addition in Norton Internet Security 2010 is a new reputation engine, named Quorum. It works by automatically crosschecking your downloads and files against usage data collected from the millions of Norton installations across the globe. If it finds a program that’s not in common circulation – or one that’s hosted on a suspiciously new or remote server – it flags it up and advises you to steer clear until Symantec has had a chance to investigate it. It’s not a perfect system, but it offers more reassurance than most other suites.

Disappointingly, though, when it came to more traditional malware detection methods, Norton ranked behind our preferred Avira suite. When we set it to scan this month’s collection of malware it achieved a 90% detection rate – creditable, perhaps, but some way off Avira’s 98%.

It was a similar story with the firewall. The module made sensible decisions and deflected our attacks without demanding user input. But it did permit our attacking PC to at least confirm the existence of our test machine, leaving it slightly more at risk than with F-Secure, which made the system undetectable.

Besides Quorum, Norton’s 2010 suite introduces Safe Web, as seen in the latest edition of Norton 360. This browser-based system gives trust ratings to commercial websites, based on user reports and third-party business intelligence. Its ratings reflect concerns such as a site’s privacy and security policies, to help you decide whether to trust a given site with your personal details.

And there’s also a new performance log, which maintains a calendar of events such as software installations and malware scans. A log of CPU usage helps you track down greedy processes, while parental controls and a network security map round off the new toys.

Pleasingly, all these new features haven’t ruined Norton’s footprint: installing the software added just two seconds to boot time, plus 12 seconds of subsequent CPU activity. And a Vista system footprint of 613MB isn’t too hard to swallow at all.

The general layout is still a little confusing, with too many links and sub-panes. The three PC licence costs £10 more than Avira’s. And, as we’ve seen, Norton 2010’s scanning engine doesn’t detect as much as its rivals. All the same it’s a suite packed with genuinely useful features, and between Safe Web and Quorum it’s the best way we’ve seen to intercept online threats – even brand new ones – before they ever reach your machine.

Author: Darien Graham-Smith

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Comments

User comments

Ludicrous Price!

With a retail price of £49, this should surely only rate 3 stars for VFM?

By incognitii on 23 Sep 2009

derek

I agree with iconitti,

Especially as very many of us only have ONE computer, they should have a single price.

By derek10000 on 24 Sep 2009

and cheaper..

Buy 3 user version of 2009 from Pcworld at £24 and get the free upgrade from Norton :)

By lesdd on 24 Sep 2009

Get a free antivirus for £0

guys dont waste your time with norton products,i had my system infested with all sorts of malware etc with norton installed keep well away im sure you have better things to spend your money at!!

By aaroh on 27 Sep 2009

Might be a waste of time..

I just read a seemingly credible review for this on Amazon where this version of Norton could not detect test viruses that other products picked up as they were trying to be downloaded. If true, it is indeed sad that this would be considered an A-List alternate by PCPro.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B002M787XG
/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_pop_hist_1?ie=UTF8&showViewp
oints=0&filterBy=addOneStar

By alvin on 28 Dec 2009

If you're referring to the top review on the page you cite, please note that the author has misunderstood the purpose of the EICAR test files. Some security vendors choose, for diagnostic purposes, to treat these harmless files as viruses; but this isn't a universal agreement, and whether or not a given package identifies them (falsely) as dangerous tells us nothing about that package's ability to detect actual malware. As noted above, when we tested NIS 2010 against real threats (a test the writer of the linked review did not attempt) we found the package performed admirably.

By DarienGS on 3 Jan 2010

General comment for Review

Sorry to put this under Norton, but I couldn't find anywhere to post for the whole review.

Although Free AVG is a good product I would say it's a little misleading to put it in the A-List as the alternative security suite. Seems to me that BitDefender would hold the second place a little better.

Why was only the AVG free edition reviewed and not the full suite?

What has happened to ZoneAlarm?
I know it dropped from favour when it didn't keep up with Vista but it looks as though it's alive and kicking these days. Would have been nice to see it in a comparative review like this.

Overall thanks for a very informative review, which happened to come along just when my Kaspersky decided to nag me to renew!!

By ca3rwyn on 19 Feb 2010

Yes, my Kaspersky license is also coming up for renewal. I've read all these great reviews of Norton 2010, though was put off my Norton's bad reputation, but thought I'd give it a try. Especially as it has a free 90 day trial.

Have had it installed for a while now, and all those old reports of Norton being a resource hog, and badly written, seem to be no longer true for the latest version.

I'm quite impressed, so may even buy a one year license when my trial is up. Especially since it's about £15 delivered on Ebuyer (seems to have dropped from the £49 the first poster was quoting).

By pbryanw on 22 Feb 2010